George Jacome going road in biking effort to raise funds for Atlantis Charter School

Sunday

May 14, 2017 at 7:37 PMMay 16, 2017 at 8:57 AM

Trip from Washington, D.C., back to Fall River will take 5 days

Michael Holtzman Herald News Staff Reporter @MDHoltzman

FALL RIVER — He’s calling it the “Ride for Atlantis,” and it’s an understatement to say F. George Jacome is peddling for a purpose.

People are known to work hard for their family and children. For their schools. For their community. To improve educational opportunities.

One might say Fernando George Jacome — who immigrated to this city at 9 years old with his family from São Miguel in the Azores, and who’s lived in Fall River for roughly 40 of his just about 60 years — is rolling all those inspirations into one.

When he takes the red-eye train from Providence to arrive at 7 a.m. Tuesday in Washington, D.C., Jacome, traveling alone with his 17-pound titanium-framed Colnago touring bike and gear, will turn back the clock a bit for a great cause.

His ride begins Wednesday morning, and he plans to complete it Sunday.

His approximately 460-mile, five-day journey from the nation’s capital back to hometown Fall River is a Herculean effort to raise money and awareness for the city’s Atlantis Charter School, which is building a new campus near the edge of South Watuppa Pond while expanding to the full kindergarten through Grade 12 schooling.

“It’s a challenge, but providing a great education is also a challenge, which the teachers and staff at the Atlantis Charter School do every day,” said Jacome, whose two children attended the public charter school through eighth grade and who served as Atlantis Board of Directors president for four-plus years.

Those who know and recall Jacome know he’s not shy about challenges and competition.

In the fall of 2003, Jacome gave popular former Mayor Edward M. Lambert Jr., bidding for a fifth term of what would become a 12-year mayoral career, the race of his life.

With about 19,000 votes cast, both received more than 9,000, and Lambert prevailed by just over 900 votes. A rematch two years later was less close.

“I’ve been training hard,” Jacome said. “I wanted to do something special and near and dear to me.”

Circling back, Jacome, a professionally trained pianist, recalled in the mid-1980s when he was at Berklee College of Music in Boston he began riding 300 miles at a clip by peddling 100 miles three consecutive days.

The trim, graying, 5-foot-8, 160-pound Jacome said he’s lost 18 pounds training through the region the past four or five months, and expects he’ll lose another 5 to 8 pounds.

He said, “The last time I did something like this I was a bit younger,” in the late 1990s, early 2000s.

Thursday, on the second day of his ride, Jacome will turn 60.

His fund-raising target is $60,000 — a few extra zeroes after his age.

“We hope to reach that goal. We’re doing very well … we’re around $20,000,” Jacome said during an extensive phone interview Friday.

His ride will be through cities like Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York City and New Haven, and along non-interstate highways but major back roads like routes 1, 4, 13, 17, 22 and, closer to home, heading east on routes 6 and 103 from neighboring Rhode Island.

It will conclude Sunday at the Cove Restaurant & Marina at 392 Davol St., on a non-school day when Jacome expects Atlantis students, faculty, staff and supporters, friends and family, on hand to celebrate the milestone ride.

Jacome and his wife, Renee Desrosiers, are parents of Gillian, 18, who will be attending Fordham University in the fall, and her brother Mason, 14, who will be a sophomore at Bishop Connolly High School, where his sister graduated. Both attended Atlantis from grades K-8.

Those wishing to learn more about the Ride for Atlantis and contribute in Jacome’s name can go to Facebook pages for the Atlantis Charter School Foundation or his personal F. George Jacome page.

He plans to post updates throughout the adventurous ride and encourages responses.

While he said it’s a digital marketing fundraiser, contributions and checks can be made out and mailed to the Atlantis Educational Foundation, 37 Park St., Fall River, MA 02721.

“This is my way of raising awareness and support for more than 1,000 Fall River kids and families that rely on various resources to continue and grow the success that is Atlantis Charter School,” Jacome proudly said.

He’s assuming all expenses associated with his ride and said “every penny” donated will be go to the charter school through the foundation.

Jacome, who said he has “deep roots” in the city with his parents and sister also living in the Highlands, called Fall River “a vibrant community” containing an immigrant population with a spirit “that’s such a powerful force.”

For him, English was his third fluent language after Portuguese and French. He’s worked in business and health care development.

He also said Fall River is a city that has had “wonderful educational choices.”

When he ran for mayor, his platforms included the aim of building another academic public high school, he said. Of his goals for his 460-mile cycling challenge from D.C. back to the city for this cause: “In essence, I’m kind of renewing some of those platforms that happened in 2003,” Jacome said.

Email Michael Holtzman at mholtzman@heraldnews.com or call him at 508-676-2573.